When we first dreamt of this trip, we would often talk about potentially spending some time off the bikes, doing projects that interested us or volunteering. As we planned and prepped, the reality of the trip sunk in. Two years is a long time. It’s longer than most people allow themselves to dream of, but it’s still not long enough to do everything (not even a whole lifetime is long enough for that!) The timescale of needing to get back to work within two years meant that the idea of spending time off the bikes sadly fizzled out. But it was obviously still there, somewhere, in the back of our minds.

Whenever our bodies were tired and stiff we would mention how much we needed yoga to sort us out. We both started doing yoga almost 9 years ago. Initially, I began by dragging Ted to our local class in the hope it would help his knees and back, which he was really suffering with at the time. We were totally spoilt to have a beautiful, purpose built yoga studio and an incredible, inspiring teacher of Iyengar yoga just around the corner from us in our village. We absolutely loved attending our weekly classes and over the years Ted saw lots of improvement in his knees and back. No matter how much we could talk ourselves out of attending, we always felt better after our class and walked home on those Tuesday evenings with a warm glow inside. The memories we have of the community we became part of, the huge amount of things we learnt, the improvements in strength and flexibility and the calm joy those yoga classes brought into our lives meant that we have always tried to keep a little bit of yoga in our days somehow. But the reality of this trip has meant that this has been difficult. Don’t believe what anyone on Instagram may say – finding a perfect yoga-worthy patch of ground that is not too dirty, too rocky, too lumpy or covered in rubbish is harder than you think. I’m lucky in that my small sizes means I have just enough space inside the tent to stretch out a Downward Dog and a few other poses every morning, but Ted doesn’t have that luxury.

Our bodies are definitely tired and stiff after 15 months on the road. It’s safe to say we are perfectly morphed into the shape you need to be to ride a bike, but that’s not conducive to any other activity – even putting socks on apparently! So the spark of an idea to spend a little time doing some yoga slowly started to emerge.

Yoga was created in the Himalaya (5000 years ago – Bonkers!), so it seemed perfectly fitting to squeeze some yoga into our time in Nepal. Having studied yoga in the UK, and mainly following Iyengar yoga, we wanted to experience a traditional take on it. Yoga in the UK is very often thought of as being a physical exercise class; the weekly antidote to the muscles curled by hunching over a laptop or driving a car too much, but yoga is much more than this. Traditionally, yoga is made up of eight different ‘limbs’ and the physical postures (asana) is actually only one part of the practice. So we wanted to experience a holistic take on yoga that encompassed everything. And not just that, we wanted to learn. We didn’t need a retreat – we have nothing to escape, no need to calm our minds – our life at the moment is a retreat, albeit a physically exhausting, sweaty, dirty, dusty kind of retreat. I personally had no real confidence that I would be good enough to teach, but I had lots of desire to learn, so we enrolled in a 200-hour yoga teacher training course at the Nepal Yoga Academy.

We were pretty apprehensive about attending the course. Neither of us had done any serious or regular yoga practice for over a year. We could barely touch our toes. We are definitely not the typical yoga types – we had no Lululemon leggings with us, we definitely had not received a pedicure recently and we were not carrying a screen printed, organic cotton tote emblazoned with this week’s whitty, passive-aggressive environmental slogan.

I had visions of everyone else on the course being far better than me and I feared looking foolish for enrolling on a course that was beyond me. Ted had concerns about whether he really wanted to dedicate almost a month of time to yoga, when we only had 24 months for this trip. He worried he’d feel stuck there if he didn’t like it, or was made to do things he didn’t want to do. He also had the greatest fear of them all – the fear of not having enough food. When we received the daily schedule which showed that breakfast wasn’t served until 9.30am, a full 3 hours after the days sessions started, panic set in. But a quick swing by a supermarket to stock up on a measley 2kgs oats, 1kg peanut butter and 1kg coffee before we left Kathmandu meant he felt a little better about things.

It made us both realise how unrestricted and free our lives have been for the last 15 months. With only us and our bikes, there has been no one else dictating a schedule or imposing limitations on us.  We have been able to choose what, when and where for everything. And although all the decision making can become very tiring, there is also so much freedom in it – we feared giving that up, relinquishing the control for almost a month of the precisious 24 we have for this trip. But we knew that it would do us some good, take us out of our comfort zone and put the decisions in someone else’s hands for a little while.  It felt scary. The day before starting, the doubt really started to creep in, a knotted ball of nerves sat heavy in my stomach and I really questioned what we had done in signing up. But we were committed now, so (in the words of Ren) I buried myself with a great big smile and rolled in to the Nepal Yoga Academy at Panchashree Yoga Retreat in the Kathmandu Valley.

We were welcomed in with big smiles and a hearty reception from all the staff at the retreat, and the building itself was really smart. We arrived in time for lunch, and almost immediately our fears of relinquishing control were tested. The dining room was a place of silence. During every meal for the duration of our time we would have to eat in silence. Absolutely no talking to anyone else and no phones for entertainment or distraction. As this was explained to Ted, I could see the look on his face, which told me this was not starting well. The idea was that eating in silence would allow us to think about what we were eating, to appreciate it, to realise when our bodies told us we were full and to truly taste every mouthful. But this felt so alien. For us, and for many in the West, mealtimes are times to socialise, times to gather together and times to connected with other people over the food you are all sharing. It felt so awkward, sitting in the uneasy quiet, not saying ‘hello’ as other people came and joined us at the long tables. My eyes darted about, not knowing where to look in the deafening silence. Then the food appeared. It was Dahl Baht, the national dish of Nepal – lentil soup, rice, spinach, curried vegetables and pickles. It looked delicious, but oh so small. It seemed Ted’s fears were being confirmed. He had already demolished his tasty, but tiny, portion by the time I dared glance up at his face to see his reaction. This really was not going well. Just as Ted was clearly starting to despair, the smiling, bustling cook came out of her kitchen, her arm wrapped around a huge steel pan, as she started dishing up seconds to those who wanted it. And everyone wanted it. The meal was truly delicious, and it was great to know that everything served here was vegetarian. Ted was visibly overjoyed and had seconds, then thirds, making the cook laugh and quickly establishing himself as the guy who eats a lot of everything.

Our introductions and welcome ceremony came next. Dr. Chintamani Gautam (known to us as Guruji), the founder of the Academy, welcomed us and introduced us to the rest of his amazing team. We met the tweleve other students who would be with us for the duration of the teacher training course. As we were given our books and stationary it felt very much like being back at school together all those years ago. As part of the welcome ceremony we were also presented with a khada (a traditional Nepali scarf which represents love and a warm welcome) whilst also having a bindi placed on our forehead to protect our third eye. It all felt very unfamiliar, but I could sense that most of our fellow students felt the same and the thought that I wasn’t alone in this uneasy, nervous feeling was very comforting.

Guruji’s calm, warm, humourous, but straight talking introduction gave us an insight in to what we could expect for our time on the course and it was clear it would not be a walk in the park. Our days started at 6.30am with Meditation, then a session of Pranayama (Breathwork), then a 1 hour 30 min Asana class, finally some breakfast, then self-study time, philosophy session, then lunch, then a workshop (to study the Asana more specifically) or anatomy class, then another 1 hour 30 min Asana class, then dinner. And by the time we arrived at our free time in the evening we were ready for nothing but sleeping. Fortunately for us, each session was separated by a cup of tea (about 6 in total per day) so we had just about enough tea to see us through.

But as a lover of routine I settled in well and found great comfort in the familiarity of having a schedule again. Ted, not being a lover of mornings, found it a little more tricky to adjust to working with someone else’s timings, especially the 6.30am meditation session. He seemingly got out of bed and rolled into the meditation session with his down jacket hood pulled over his wooly hat, eyes still closed, like a teenage boy on a Monday morning at school, and he mainly used the session for a few extra minutes sleep. But by the time the start of pranayama came around, it usually seemed that the grumpy bear had woken up and he was ready for the day.

In our first few Asana classes I felt so stiff and creaky. I couldn’t do what I used to be able to do. My body felt much older. It no longer felt strong and capable, it just felt sore and a bit saggy around the edges. Everything other than everyone’s favourite yoga pose savasana (lying on the floor!) was uncomfortable. I knew that this was going to be the case, it is to be expected after 15 months of just riding a bicycle, but the reality was still demoralising. I’m terrible at comparison, I always let it steal my joy, thinking that someone else can do something better than me, that I’m not good enough. So in those first few Asana classes it was as much as a mental challenge as it was a physical one. To remind myself not to compare myself to others and to silence that voice in my head that wondered why I can’t do what others can. Sometimes I find this message easy to say and difficult to actually do. But Ted stepped in with some great advice here, he pointed out that everyone in the class is different – one person may have all the flexibility and struggle with strength, another may have great backbending but have stiff hips, another may have great forward bends but knotted shoulders meaning arm work is a struggle. Everyone is different. Everyone has their own thing. You can’t look at another and think ‘I wish I could be like them’ because to be like them you’d have to be them. You’d have to take on all the good and all the bad, all of their history, all of their life and you’d have to sacrifice all of your own, not just the bad bits but the good bits too. Showing comparison in this light makes me feel like it really is a waste of my energy, as I’m definitely not someone who would choose to step into someone else’s life if that kind of magic came along. And even whilst thinking all of this, it is still so hard to make my brain switch off that internal voice of comparison, but those Asana classes really helped me. I had to just take things easy in those first classes, not push myself too much and trust the process, believing that slowly things would get better. And they did. Little by little, bit by bit, things became easier, but it was the mental approach to yoga that helped.

One of the things I really love about yoga is the message of leaving your ego outside the door before class, not comparing yourself to others and having no expectations. We were lucky enough to have the most incredible bunch of fellow students and they absolutely embraced these philosophies. The group was truly global with students from all over the world, from France, Germany, Spain, Denmark, USA, Ukraine, China, Japan, Malaysia and Nepal. To study with such a diverse mix of people, with different cultures and social norms it was a wonderful experience to be able to learn and grow together. A small group of us quickly developed a deep connection and these four other girls have taught me so much. The friendship we developed meant I was able to be honest, open, vulnerable and truly myself, which is a wonderful gift.

The course itself was pretty tough, we had a lot to learn and memorise. The teachers at the Nepal Yoga Academy were young, but so inspiring in both their physical yoga practice and their calm, encouraging approach to life. They seemed much wiser than their years and they had this energy that seemed to beam out of them.

The course pushed us out of our comfort zones and challenged us physically. The part we all found most uncomfortable was learning how to teach. Being up there in front of other students teaching them was a daunting prospect, especially as classical yoga involves a lot of chanting mantras – which is too much like singing in front of other people for my liking. But it was something we all found hard, and we found a connection in overcoming our insecurities together. There is something magical that happens when you share and are supported by those around you. When you are truly honest and vulnerable about your own emotions and experiences, when you own up to your individual struggles, it’s a soul-stirring experience to have those around you help guide you through, not necessarily by giving you the answers or making things easy for you, but by making you realise that you are capable. Having that sense of togetherness meant that stresses, worries and self-doubts, all just seemed like a natural part of learning and life that everyone experiences. And, I suppose, that’s the beauty of friendship, the importance of community, and I absolutely found this in the girls.

Our assessment at the end of the course included the requirement to teach a full 30 minute Pranayama session and a full 50 minute Asana class. Nerves ahead of assessment day we’re pretty fraught. It felt like being back at school, cramming revision into the evening, and waking early to cram in more learning before the day began. But the teachers at the Nepal Yoga Academy were so supportive. They guided us through each step of the way and we had plenty of practice teaching sessions before our assessment. I focused on the assessment so much, and wanted it over and done with, but the moment it was finished, the elation turned to sadness as I realised it meant our time at the Yoga Academy was coming to an end.

We ended our time at the Nepal Yoga Academy with graduation day. The physical graduation came first. We had to complete 108 rounds of Surya Namaskar (meaning Sun Salutation – a sequence of 12 different yoga postures) carried out at the temple at sunrise. The 108 rounds flew by quicker than I imagined. Watching the sun light move up the mountain sides around us, whilst perpetually flowing through the sequence of Asana, moving in unison together as a group was a great moment. Hearing each person count down the number of Asana in a sequence in their own native language brought home just how international our group had been, and how yoga had united people from all these nations across the world, with more similarities connecting us than differences. We were then dressed in traditional Nepali dress for the presentation of our teacher training certificates. The final part of graduation was a fire ceremony in which we metaphorically threw our unwanted and unhelpful thoughts and emotions into the fire in order to be able to start anew.

And it did feel like starting anew. We would be getting back on the bikes for the first time in almost a month, with bendy-er bodies, a new appreciation for eating in silence and an absolute love of spiced breakfast pancakes (well, all the food at the Academy really). It has been such a joy for me to be able to make new, deep and lasting connections with the girls. The laughter and tears we have shared will stay with me for a long time. I will miss them so much, but I know that those memories, along with everything else I have learnt from them, and from the Academy, is now safely packed up and will be coming along with me for the ride (whether they like it or not!). So, as it is with all our loved ones back home – friends and family – and as it is with everyone else we’ve met along the way, we are always together, or at least only a WhatsApp away.